How It Works
This calculator works in 4 steps.
Choose the plate format
Select 6, 12, 24, 96, or 384 wells, or enter a custom well count.
Enter cells and volume per well
Type the cells per well and the medium volume per well.
Enter the counted density
Type cells/mL from the count of the stock suspension.
Read the recipe
The calculator returns seeding density, total volume with overage, and stock and medium volumes.
The Formula
The formula divides cells per well by volume per well, then scales to the full plate.
C_seed = N_well / V_wellV_total = wells × V_well × (1 + o)V_stock = C_seed × V_total / C_count- N_well:
- Cells per well
- V_well:
- Medium volume per well
- o:
- Overage fraction
- C_count:
- Counted stock density
5,000 cells per well in 100 µL gives 5 × 10⁴ cells/mL. A full 96-well plate with 10% overage needs 10.56 mL. From a 1 × 10⁶ cells/mL stock, use 0.528 mL cells and 10.03 mL medium.
Conversion Table
The conversion table gives seeding density and full-plate volume with 10% overage for 6 plate setups.
| Plate | Cells per well | Volume per well | Seeding density | Full plate + 10% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 96-well | 5,000 | 100 µL | 5 × 10⁴ cells/mL | 10.56 mL |
| 96-well | 10,000 | 100 µL | 10⁵ cells/mL | 10.56 mL |
| 24-well | 50,000 | 500 µL | 10⁵ cells/mL | 13.2 mL |
| 12-well | 100,000 | 1,000 µL | 10⁵ cells/mL | 13.2 mL |
| 6-well | 300,000 | 2,000 µL | 1.5 × 10⁵ cells/mL | 13.2 mL |
| 384-well | 1,000 | 40 µL | 2.5 × 10⁴ cells/mL | 16.9 mL |
What Is the Cell Seeding Dilution Calculator?
The Cell Seeding Dilution Calculator is a tool that returns the cell suspension density and total volume needed to seed a specified number of cells per well across a plate or flask set. The seeding density equals cells per well divided by the volume per well.
Seeding numbers come from the experiment design, such as 5,000 cells per well in a 96-well plate. The calculator converts that number into cells/mL, computes the suspension volume for all wells plus overage, and returns how much counted suspension and medium to combine.
Common Uses
There are 5 main uses of this calculator.
Viability assays
Users seed 96-well plates for MTT and resazurin assays.
Imaging plates
Labs seed cells for confluence targets at imaging time.
Transfection plates
Users seed 24-well and 6-well plates for transfection.
Organoid seeding
Researchers seed cells in matrix domes at set counts.
Drug screens
Screening labs seed 384-well plates at 500 to 2,000 cells per well.